Donald Baechler. Walking Figure at Aventura Mall.
Photo by Phillip Pessar.
Donald Baechler’s (1956-2022) works are deceptively simple. Baechler was inspired by the art of children and outsider art, but the thought behind each of his works is anything but simple.
He received a B.F.A. in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and an M.F.A. from Cooper Union. He then went to study at the Städelschule School in Germany. When he returned to the U.S,. in 1980, he settled in New York and became part of the East Village art scene.
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His works were shown at the Shafrazi Gallery, alongside the works of Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Kenny Scharf. Baechler didn’t feel that his work quite fit in with those who were considered graffiti artists. “I never felt entirely comfortable showing my work there because it had nothing to do with what Keith and Kenny Scharf were doing. “I wasn't part of this downtown club scene,” he said in a interview in Bomb magazine, “and I had nothing to do with so-called graffiti art ... I always used to tell people, 'I'm an abstract artist before anything else,' For me, it's always been more about line, form, balance and the edge of the canvas—all these silly formalist concerns—than it has been about subject matter or narrative or politics.”
It is almost impossible to categorize Baechler’s work. He used a variety of media, often layering and using collage in his paintings. His sculptures are large, fun and playful, like Walking Figure, the ten-foot tall, textured bronze sculpture at Florida's Aventura Mall.
Baechler died of a heart attack on April 2, 2022, after attending a benefit dinner in New York for the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He was 65.
The works of Donal Baechler are in the permanent collection of MoMA, the Whitney, the Guggenheim, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Centre George Pompidou, the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris, The Museum der Moderne, Rupertinum, Salzburg, the Stedelijk and many other venues around the world.
Please contact us if you would like more information about the work of Donald Baechler available at VFA.
References:
Roberta Smith. Donald Baechler, Painter of Cartoonish Collages, Is Dead at 65. The Ne York Times. April 26, 2022.
Brian Belott. A Tribute to Donald Baechler. The Brooklyn Rail. May 2024.
David Kapp. Donald Baechler/Interview. Bomb Magazine. July 1, 2000.
